First Look: Monarch

In Monarch’s main dining room, hundreds of butterflies seem to just drop from the sky.

Seven-year-old Monarch just did what more restaurants should: reevaluate the concept, execution, and direction. All of that billowy grandeur that was so hip and happening just five years ago is not so de rigueur today. As today’s gentlemen eschew the brothers Brooks for Tommy Bahama, so it is in the world of dining. Monarch has simply chosen to roll up its sleeves.

The bistro/bar menu is part New Orleans and part executive chef Josh Galliano’s take on New Orleans, trolling from crawfish bread and gumbo dogs to Natchitoches meat pies and sweet potato–wrapped crawfish. In the main dining room, beneath a migration of burnished steel butterflies, you’ll cozy closer to the Monarch of old, replete with seven-course tasting menus and Galliano’s unwavering attention to local suppliers and delivered-today freshness. Now, try to look forward seven years, and wonder what the future might again bring—or even could bring—to one of the city’s top restaurants. Yeah, we couldn’t come up with much either.